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Military science is a term that generally dates back to the Industrial Revolution, when many disciplines sought to discuss their ideas in terms of the emerging fascination with science and the scientific method. Contrasting views contend that war and the conduct of warfare remain arts, and imperfect ones at that. Nevertheless, the term “military science” is used here to outline the main topics in the literature on the military and warfare. Military-centered topic areas include strategy, doctrine, history, and leadership. The military-science literature addresses the different kinds of war and...

Military science is a term that generally dates back to the Industrial Revolution, when many disciplines sought to discuss their ideas in terms of the emerging fascination with science and the scientific method. Contrasting views contend that war and the conduct of warfare remain arts, and imperfect ones at that. Nevertheless, the term “military science” is used here to outline the main topics in the literature on the military and warfare. Military-centered topic areas include strategy, doctrine, history, and leadership. The military-science literature addresses the different kinds of war and uses of military force. The kinds of wars, or more broadly, the kinds of conflict, include conventional and counterinsurgency warfare. More current concerns address the military’s role in humanitarian interventions, which have increased in quantity, scope, and priority since the end of the Cold War’s superpower rivalry. Post-9/11 attention has been more focused on terrorism and the proliferation and use of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction. Traditional areas for the study of military science include developing an understanding of the role of military power that defines the purposes, role, scope, and primary operational areas of the armed services, including discussions of land power, sea power, and airpower. In military operations since World War I, the nature of combined arms warfare is emphasized, and in modern terminology, includes the joint military operations of land, sea, air, special operations, intelligence, space, and cyber forces. The influence of technology on warfare remains an important focus of study, as does the longstanding significance of arms and weapons-systems research and development, budgets and resource management, manpower, and logistics. For the United States and Western powers, as well as the armed forces of emerging democracies, the topic of civilian-military relations remains of critical importance.